Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The sum of N28 billion is to be injected into Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC) over a period of two years, the Bureau of Public Entreprises (BPE) has said.
Yola Disco was recently acquired by Quest Electricity Nigeria for N19 billion and the company is preparing to use its expertise to transform the energy firm.
The Director-General of the BPE, Mr Alex Okoh, in a statement signed by Mrs Amina Othman, the agency’s Head of Public Communications, said the new investor was committed to improving the quality of life of the inhabitants in the North-East geopolitical zone through an aggressive investment drive, thereby providing an economic tool for combating the insurgency in the region.
The DG said this investment would be utilised to carry out an extensive upgrade of the company’s electricity distribution network, adding that it was expected that the investment would deliver results within a five-year period.
Mr Okoh said the results included a reduction in Aggregate Technical, Commercial, and Collections (ATC & C) losses from the current level of 80 per cent, which was the highest in the industry, to 29 per cent which translated to a 51 per cent loss reduction.
He stated that the customer base increased from 396,650 to 596,650, a 50 per cent growth and a significant increase in energy supplied from 1,305 Gigawatt.
Yola Disco is the distribution company responsible for the distribution of energy to Adamawa, Taraba, Borno, and Yobe states of Nigeria.
With the successful conclusion of the privatization process on the power sector, the organisation was formally privatized on November 1, 2013.
The BPE had recently disclosed that the federal government plans to concession 36 state-owned assets, citing that the concession of Calabar and Kano Free Trade Zones would equally boost the country’s revenue.
